HITCHIKING - NORTHERN TERRITORY STYLE

It has been a very quiet week here with not a lot happening. We actually got some snow on Thursday, just flurries but enough to remind us that the cold weather hasn't entirely given up and departed.

Driving around in traffic earlier today reminded me that before I came to Canada almost all of my driving was done in remote areas of Australia on blood-red, dirt roads. There you didn't have to worry about other vehicles, just kangaroos, emu's, camels and buffalo's wandering onto the road. The driving comparisions  between there and where I am now are worlds apart.

That notion actually leads me to a memory or driving in the Northern Territory of Australia.............

"And not under any circumstances are you to carry civilians in your government vehicle, nor will you transport goods or animals. Your vehicle is to be used expressly by you for government business. Does everyone understand that failure to comply with this directive can result in immediate dismissal from government service?” The facilitator glared at the class daring any student to challenge his meager authority.


“Do you all understand?”



The class provided him with a few nods and a couple of yes sirs.

 

So why was I driving down a pool cue straight gravel road in the Northern Territory of Australia, in a government vehicle occupied by three Aboriginal passengers as well as their four hunting dogs?



I can say that I really didn’t have that much of a choice in the matter as the trio had planted themselves in the middle of the dirt road and basically demanded that I drive them and their dogs to their community.



Unfortunately this scenario was never discussed in my training to be a government worker in remote, Australian Aboriginal communities. Reluctantly I allowed them to climb on board.



“Hey, what does this one do?” asked the Aboriginal man sitting beside me in the front seat as he leant forward to press a button on the car stereo system.



He did not wait for my reply, he pressed down on the button and the music was cranked up to its maximum warp factor of sound.



The music boomed and filled the vehicle.



His buddies in the rear seat thought that this was a fantastic replacement for silence and they started to pound on the back of the front seat.

 

“I am stuck in Folsom Prison,” they sang along with Johnny and with each uncoordinated bang on the back of my seat my entire body was thrust forward.



It was around the time of “I hear a train a coming,” whilst trying to stave off concussion, mingled with dread thoughts of losing my job that the dogs in the far back of the vehicle began to fight, no doubt thrown into a web of excitement by their master’s off-key singing.


I was looking in my rear view mirror at the sing-a-long in the seat behind me, and the dog fight in the back when the bloke beside me said ever so calmly, “watch out for that big roo.”



“What roo?” I said flicking my eyes back to the road to catch sight of a large red kangaroo bounding across the road in front of the vehicle.



Now kangaroos are notoriously stupid. Cute, but plain out and out dumb.



This particular kangaroo must have been the cream of the crop because he had hundreds of thousands of acres to roam in. Within that acreage there was just this one single-lane road and on that one small road just was just one vehicle and this kangaroo had to launch himself across the road there and then.



There was a large thump as I hit the kangaroo broadsides. Nothing could survive that blow.



The music was forgotten and the dogs stopped fighting.



“Hey stop, stop,” the man beside me said urgently as he put his hand towards the steering wheel.



I bought the car to a sliding halt.



“You guys worried about the roo?” I said feeling pleasantly surprised at their act of concern.


“No mate we wanta get that roo and take him home for dinner, he’s a big one and will give us a good feed.”



“Oh,” is the only reply I could muster.



Later I drove into the Indigenous community with the large kangaroo tied to the roof of the vehicle, the unfortunate animal having bled all over the car on the way. The combination of blood, dust and wind had turned my formerly pristine white government vehicle into something that belonged on a cheap and nasty slasher film.



 My passengers got out of the vehicle without a word, untied the kangaroo, placed it over a broad, black shoulder and wandered off.



I looked at my gore splattered government vehicle and tried to recall if we were warned about the carriage of dead animals and bloodied and battered vehicles.



No such warning sprung to mind which meant that my first day, of my last job wasn’t a total disaster.

akmacca08@live.com.au